Our story
Why I couldn’t leave this alone.
I didn’t grow up with these talks. Not body safety. Not online safety. Not the one about big feelings. So I pieced them together the long way, and a lot of what I struggled with, I later learned, could have been eased with the right words at the right age. When I thought about the little ones I love, I wanted them to have that head start. So I built Trailies, to make these talks easier for the parents who want to have them, and to give their kids the gentlest possible start.
Trusted worldwide, 111,868+ kids helped in 68 countries
The start
Kids don’t come knowing this stuff. Someone has to teach them.
I didn’t grow up with any of this. Nobody sat me down for the body safety talk, or handed me words for what was happening inside me when I was angry or scared. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, most parents never got those words themselves. But it meant I spent years figuring out the hard way what a few honest conversations could have taught me early.
Because that’s the part nobody says out loud: kids don’t magically know how to handle big feelings, or how to keep their body safe, or what to do when something online feels wrong. You have to teach them. It’s a parent’s job, and nearly every parent wants to do it. They just don’t always know how to start, or the moment feels awkward, especially the harder talks.
When I pictured the little ones in my life growing up, I realized I could give them what I never had, not by being the perfect adult, but by making the words easy to reach. In a quiet way, building this felt like going back and handing my younger self the thing he needed.
The difference was never the kid, or how much a parent cared. It was whether the words were there when the moment came.
The why
Once I saw how fixable it was, I couldn’t unsee it.
I kept thinking about how much softer my own childhood could have been if someone had just handed me the words, for my body, for my feelings, for the conversations that matter most.
And I kept thinking about the parents I knew who wanted to have these talks but froze, not because they didn’t care, but because no one ever showed them how.
I can’t hand every family a therapist. But I can hand them the words. The exact ones, ready for a Tuesday night.
Not another parenting book that sits on a shelf. Not a system that takes a weekend to learn. Just something a parent could grab on a Tuesday and actually use that night.
That’s why Trailies exists.
The pivot
It started with one deck. Then parents told me what they were really freezing on.
The first tool was a deck of cards for big feelings. Help a kid name what they were feeling. Give the parent words for the moment. Something to actually do when everything was unraveling at 7:32 AM.
Parents tested it. Passed it to friends. Friends passed it on. Suddenly people I’d never met were asking, “where can I get this?”
Then a different kind of message started coming. Parents asking for the body safety talk. The online safety talk. The hard ones. The conversations they’d been putting off for two, three, six years because they didn’t know how to start without making it weird or scary.
Parents weren’t just freezing on tantrums. They were freezing on the talks that actually keep a kid safe.
That’s when Trailies became something bigger than one deck. It became the place parents come for the talks they’d been avoiding, done in five minutes, at bedtime, with the exact words ready to go.
What we make now
Three Talks every kid needs.
Each one has scripts written word-for-word by your kid’s age. Each one is built on PCIT, CBT, attachment theory, and decades of research from people who’ve spent careers studying this. None of them take longer than five minutes to start.
The Body Safety Talk
The 7 rules that keep a kid safe, and the exact words to teach them. Most parents have covered two or three of the seven. The missing ones are the ones that matter most.
Start this talk →
The Online Safety Talk
Roblox. Snapchat. Discord. The platforms your kid is on, the predators they're not ready for, and the exact words to start the talk before something happens.
Start this talk →
The Big Feelings Deck
For when they're losing it over the wrong cereal at 7:32 AM. 54 cards your kid actually wants to use, so you stop yelling and they actually bounce back.
Start this talk →What we stand for
Four things, no exceptions.
The rules every Talk has to clear before we ship it. The ones we won’t bend, even when it would be easier.
Science-backed (but speakable).
Built on PCIT, CBT, attachment theory, and trauma-aware frameworks. Translated for the 7:30 AM kitchen, not the clinic. If a card sounds like a textbook, it gets rewritten until it sounds like a person.
Kid-first, always.
If a kid doesn’t actually want to use it, it’s gone. No charts pretending to be fun. No worksheets disguised as games. We’ve killed plenty of “good ideas” because the kids in our pilots couldn’t sit through them.
Radical empathy.
Made for parents who are trying, imperfectly, beautifully, to figure it out. We've never met one who needed more guilt. The voice on every card is the friend in the kitchen, not the expert at the lectern.
Give forward.
Every Talk you buy, another family gets one free. The single mom on a double shift, the teacher with 30 kids, the family in the hardest season of their lives. Protecting a kid shouldn't depend on a credit card.
Who we are
Built by a cycle-breaker. Built with the experts.
I’m not a therapist. I’m not a teacher. I’m a guy who couldn’t shake the question “why isn’t there something better?” So I got the certifications, did the research, and found the people who’d been doing this work for decades.
Jonah
Founder · Cycle-breaker
Grew up without these talks, and built Trailies so the kids he loves, and yours, could have them early. Writes most of the cards. Reads every review. Still gets a little emotional when a parent emails about their first Talk.
Debbie Carter
Co-founder · Former teacher · Mom of 2
Twenty years as a teacher, helping other people's kids handle their emotions. Mom of 2. Now she writes the words parents read at bedtime, and signs half the cards herself.
The therapists + experts
Evidence · Safety · Science
Psychologists, licensed family therapists, early childhood specialists. They make sure every script is safe, evidence-based, and built to grow skills, not shame.
Since launch.
111,868+
Kids helped
68
Countries
3,200+
Talks gifted free
4.89/5
Body Safety Talk (127 reviews)
4.91/5
Big Feelings Deck (198 reviews)
Give a talk forward
Every Talk you buy, another family gets one free.
The single mom working double shifts deserves the same shot at protecting her kid as everyone else. So we send a free copy with every order. No paperwork. No charity language. Just one cycle-breaker helping the next.
See how it works →We built Trailies so you don’t have to wing it.
Pick a Talk. Open the first card tonight. Five minutes at bedtime. A conversation you’d been avoiding for two years, finally done.
Jonah
Founder, Trailies